“Mind The ‘Burnt Ends,’ Mate!”

June 3, 2018)

smoke me mahogany

before massed briskets and butts

and mind ‘the burnt ends’*

(For the uniniated, “Burnt Ends” are the crusty deeply mahogany-to-outright-black portions of a eight-hour smoke-roasted Boston Butt (fore-leg up above the ham) shoulder cut on a pig; on a beef brisket cut – preferably a whole “packer” brisket with both point and flat cuts attached to each other and often requiring up to 18 but usually 12-to-14 hours of smoke-roasting (some pollywogs wrap the brikets – and even the Butts! – in aluminum foil after four or so hours but that’s heresy, hear? When fully exposed to smoke – and heat – the outcroppings of “sweated-off” fat turn peaks and valleys on both cuts and they assume a rich brown-to-glossy-black color and are consumed ravenously by cognoscenti as The Best Parts. Burnt Ends sometimes are sold in smokehouse ‘Cue joints as separate features, and in others are added to “The Chop” in a pulled pork plate or sandwich. I prefer both. There is nothing gooder than a slice off a burnt end ladened piece of beef or pig, grease chin-drippingly good.)